Gift of the Bad Wolf
by kayleighchaos093
Summary: All that power... power that could wipe out entire species and bring life. What if the Bad Wolf harnessed that power and gave a gift to the Doctor and Rose? AU, rated T just to be safe.
1. The Gift

Her eyes glowed hauntingly, yet as scared as the Doctor was for Rose, he couldn't move from the floor. He was so in awe of her beauty and power, that any mere mortal would barely be able to handle it.

"I want you safe. My Doctor." She said in her eerie voice, changed now that she had the vortex running though her mind. What did she see in that head of hers? "Protected from the false God."

The Doctor barely heard the Dalek rant about his immortality, he was still gazing at Rose in awe an fear, fear for what could happen to her if he didn't stop her _right now. _

Rose looked up and in a powerful voice that was so unlike her caring nature, she boomed, "You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space, every single atom of your existence, and I divide them." Her eyes flashed golden once more, and she raised her hand. The Doctor watched in shock as she destroyed the Daleks, every last one of them. "Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends."

With her arms at her side she destroyed them all, ending the battle the Doctor never seemed to be able to. She had saved his life and ensured his people had not died in vain.

"Rose, it's done. You can stop now." He insisted, pleaded with her.

She looked down at him suddenly, offering him both of her hands. Unthinkingly, he grasped them, standing slowly and looked strait into her eyes that glowed with all the power of the vortex. Suddenly, a strange sensation began to creep over their entwined hands, and when he looked down, ribbons of the liquid gold were weaving around them, through fingers, around wrists and up arms. It felt wonderful. It felt oh so wrong.

"What are you doing?" He asked in shock, looking back up at her.

Rose's head tilted back slightly, and when she spoke, her voice was even more altered then before, it was barely Rose. "I look inside Rose Tyler's mind," The powerful and ancient voice echoed, "and I see such potential. This is my gift to you, The Doctor. A Gift born of the power of the Bad Wolf."

The glow enveloped the both of them entirely, and for the first time in hundreds of years he heard it, the Bad Wolfs gift to him. Music that could only be heard on his home planet and it brought him to tears. It was the ceremonial music for the birth of a new Time Lord, a song of time that welcomed in joy.

When he opened his eyes once more, it was just in time to see Rose start to fall forward. He caught her and gently laid her down onto the ground. He knew what he had to do, she was dying and there was no other choice. So he leaned in slowly, hesitating only slightly, then he softly pressed his lips to her own and, ignoring the chaotic feeling in his gut, he concentrated in absorbing the vortex from her.

After it was done, he knew he had but moments before his regeneration process started. It was odd, because never had he considered giving up one of his regenerations for the life of a human, but this is different. This is Rose. She sacrificed her life to come back and save him, and now he was returning the favor.

Hurrying, the Doctor carried her into the Tardis and laid her onto the soft seat by the console. Then he managed the smoothest ride he had ever conducted in a while, and just as the first symptoms of his regeneration began to hit, he steadied the Tardis in the Vortex, hoping it would float there for a few days while he—

The Doctor collapsed onto the floor beside the seat Rose was currently laying on.

She opened her eyes in time to see him cringe in pain, and taking in a ragged breath she whispered, "Doctor?"

"Rose," he gasped. "There isn't much time to explain. I'm going to change, and it's happening—"he broke off as another wave of pain washed over him. "Fast." He concluded. "I won't look like me, but it'll be me. I promise." He said, grasping her hand before he felt the tidal wave rip through is body and the golden glow similar to the Bad Wolf took over him.

That was the last thing Rose saw before she passed out again.

The Doctor had no idea how long he had been sleeping. At least he felt normal again. Well, different normal; normal in the sense that he didn't have the time vortex ripping though his body, or the particularly painful process of regeneration. It took him a moment to figure out why he was still on the floor of the Tardis.

He rolled over onto his back, groaning in a voice that was yet unfamiliar to him. Then he saw Rose, still on the seat he had placed her in, still in the same position he had last seen her.

The Doctor suddenly jumped to his feet, panicking. How long had they been out? He didn't expect Rose to have this kind of reaction to the Bad Wolf, not after he had absorbed the vortex out of her. The only reason he had been out was because his body was recuperating from the extreme change.

He desperately felt for a pulse, and was relieved when he felt one, but pulled back his hand quickly.

"_No." _he whispered, backing up and nearly tripping over his own feet. He didn't stop until he crashed into the console. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving, and he ran his hand through his hair, vaguely recognizing that he had a full head of thick hair.

He thought over what Rose had said to him as Bad Wolf. _I see such potential. This is my gift to you, The Doctor, a gift born of the power of the Bad Wolf._

She had the power to destroy entire species, and bring life. But such a transformation was impossible. Literally, in all sense of the word, impossible. He shook his head, not wanting to believe that Rose had been subjected to this kind of life, but at the same time, he wanted it. Had he not been denying himself the luxury of an extended companion for years now?

This though… his was permanent.

He walked slowly back over to her and just to be sure, laid his ear onto Rose's chest to listen.

There was no mistaking that rhythm, the tell tale sign, but he wanted to make sure. He couldn't run any tests without her being awake however, and without her full consent.

She was going to wake up to the sight of a seemingly complete stranger, telling her that not only had _he _gone through a dramatic change in all his cells, but she had as well. Then he was going to ask a DNA test just to make sure and hope she goes along with it?

Sure. It was never going to happen just like that. So he decided to take it one day at a time.

He watched her for what seemed like hours for the first signs of consciousness, and sure enough she began to stir.

"Ugh," she groaned, sitting up with her eyes still closed and twisting her back. He heard it crack three or four times, and she started to scratch her scalp and blinking her eyes open. "Doctor?" she asked, looking around before her eyes finally fell on the man standing with his arms crossed, watching her.

She flinched back, eyes widening a little, looking wide a wake all of a sudden. "Who are you?" she demanded to know, staring at him with wide eyes.

"I'm the Doctor," he said, knowing full well that she probably wouldn't accept this answer from him, but it was worth a shot.

She shook her head slightly. "No …. Where is he? Where's the Doctor, what have you done to him?" Rose demanded, sounding only a little confident in her words.

"Don't you remember Rose?" he asked her. "I told you I was going to change, that I wouldn't look like me but it would still be me. Don't you remember?"

She shook her head silently. "So you replaced him like a… a teleport or a…transnat or a body swap or something." She took some steps towards him, regaining her bravery, but the Doctor wasn't sure quite what to say. "Your not fooling me," she insisted, pushing him slightly just under his shoulder. All he could do was stare at her. "I've seen all sorts of things. Nanogenes, Galf… Slithene" she added in what he assumed was supposed to be an intimidating voice, and were he in any other situation but this, he would laugh at her. Funny how he could laugh in the face of death, but not at the young woman standing before him, whom he was trying so desperately to win her confidence and trust once more.

"Oh my God, are you Slithene?" she asked.

He had to crack a small smile at that one. He shook his head, "I am not a slithene."

"Send him back," she demanded. "I'm warning you, send the Doctor back _right now._"

"Rose, it's me," he insisted, not knowing how to convince her of anything, not in this body that he had been consciously using only for a couple hours now. "Its—honestly its me…. I was dying. To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell but… its still me."

Shaking her head she whispered, "You cant be,"

He got an idea suddenly, and walked towards her. "Then how can I remember this? The very first word I ever said to you, trapped in that cellar, surrounded by shop window dummies—oh… such a long time ago. I took your hand-" and he did just that, weaving his new fingers with hers, and they still somehow seemed to be the perfect fit. "I said one word. Just one word, I said… 'Run'"

He saw it then, in her eyes. She was starting to believe him. "Doctor…."

The Doctor smiled at her. "Hello."

She raised her hand and he was almost certain it was destined to trace the contours of his face, when she suddenly gasped and cringed into herself.

"Rose?" he asked, closing the distance between them once more and placing a consoling hand on the side of her face. "Look at me Rose."

She did so, looking extremely confused. "Doctor," she said, the word sounding weird on her tongue, like she was still uncomfortable with the fact that he was the same man as before. "What's wrong with me."

He knew what was wrong. Her still developing brain was trying to cope with the work of a new cardiovascular and respiratory system. He sighed and decided now was not the right time to tell her.

"What do you remember from before?" he asked her.

She explained to him that she remembered attempting to break into the heart of the Tardis, then staring into the time vortex. Next thing she knew she was waking up on the seat by the console to an unfamiliar man claiming to be her Doctor.

So he told her. About Bad Wolf, how she destroyed the Daleks and why he had regenerated. She looked at him, starting to trust in him a little bit more, knowing that this was the kind of stuff only the Doctor would know about.

"I suspect your just feeling the lasting effects of absorbing the vortex," he said, hating to lie to her, but knowing it was for her own good at the moment. When the time came to tell her, he hoped she would understand. "It'll improve over time."

Rose nodded and looked around the room. "I think I'm going to take a nap. My chest feels funny."

The Doctor merely nodding in reply, knowing she would soon get used to the feeling in her chest, as it would be with her the rest of her life. It was the feeling of two hearts beating side by side.


	2. Ida's Words

The Doctor spend the better half of the night pacing, his emotions rebounding all over the place, and frankly he hated it. He hated that he didn't know himself well enough to properly gage how he felt about the whole situation.

At first he felt scared. He was scared because of how Rose would react once she found out that her humanity had been taken away from her. Her ability to age was gone, and Rose was so unpredictable that he was scared she would walk out on him without giving him a chance to explain. Then what would she do with her life?

Then he felt elated. Once he thought about it some more he realized what this meant for him, for his people.

But even that elation was short lived and he collapsed into an emotional wreck of a heap on the very chair Rose had occupied hours earlier. He didn't know what to do.

**Three Months Later **

It was time to do it. Today as he fell to his death he realized what he has done to Rose. He's not exactly been lying to her for three months, but he hasn't told her the truth yet. What if he hadn't gotten lucky today? Not only would she have been stranded a hundreds of years in her future and millions of miles away from earth, but she would live forever, and unable to understand why.

But these months did more to the Doctor than fill himself with guilt. His gift he was so unwilling to accept had opened new doors for him he had refused to allow himself to even consider going through.

He had just gotten through saying goodbye to Ida, and her parting words rang in his head as he fiddled with controls on the console while he impatiently awaited Rose's return.

"_Whatever you were going to tell me to tell Rose, Doctor…. You should tell her yourself. If this was any indication to the kind of life the two of you lead, you don't want to die after missing out on so many opportunities." _

The Doctor sighed. There were many things he wanted and needed to tell Rose. One of the most important things was solely about her, a secret he held that was burning him up from the inside out. But earlier, suspended on that cable, it wasn't the Gift of the Bad Wolf he had so desperately wanted her to know.

Suddenly he heard the creak of the Tardis doors, and he looked up. When he saw her, closing the doors behind her and smiling at him, he couldn't help but smiling at her as well.

His Rose was safe, and he would owe those humans on that ship for as long as he lives. He walked over to her, and she ran up to him and jumped up to give him a hug and he swung her back and forth, loving that he could hold her in his arms when hours before he had thought he was never going to see her again.

Setting her down, still smiling he said, "Rose Tyler," in a proud sort of way. He was always proud of her, but today was extra special.

He was suddenly moved by the feeling that he wasn't quite ready to part with her for the night, so he pulled out his sonic screw driver and pointed it at the console. A soft rock song of the 1990's era earth came on, and he offered her his hand. "Care to dance?"

Rose giggled, accepting it. "We haven't danced since world war two Doctor. What brought this on?"

The words to the song floated by them as he thought of an acceptable answer to her question.

"_And I'd give up forever to touch you_

'_cause I know that you feel me somehow_

_You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be_

_And I don't want to go home right now."_

"Maybe I just feel like dancing," he said simply, ignoring all the complex, witty, serious, and emotional answers that sprung to his mind.

Rose breathed in deep, and he could feel the warm air wooshing out onto his neck from her heads position on his shoulder. It was one of the most wonderful sensations she had ever felt.

"_All I can taste is this moment_

_And all I can breathe is your life_

_And sooner or later its over_

_I just don't wanna miss you tonight"_

"What really happened down there tonight Doctor?" Rose asked him quietly. He looked over the top of her head to where Ida had stood when she bid him farewell with her own little piece of advice. Could he tell her the whole story, including the words he had almost spoken out loud?

"I used my cunning wit to outsmart a beast. Just like always." He teased her. The Doctor, conqueror of species, too cowardly to admit himself to a simple human.

Rose tapped him playfully on the shoulder her head wasn't resting on, and he had to smile. Same old Rose.

"_And I don't want the world to see me_

'_cause I don't think that they'd understand_

_When everything's made to be broken_

_I just want you to know who I am."_

"Whad'ya think it was? Really?" she asked him.

The Doctor had been fighting himself this whole time in accepting that the beast he had met was really the original Satan. Gods and religion were incredibly phoney to him. To think there was a higher power controlling the whole of the universe was incredibly… stupid. The closest species that ever came to that kind of power were the Time Lords… and they were all dead.

"I think…" he drew in a deep breath. "We beat it. That's all that matters."

Rose was quite for a couple more seconds, then she said timidly, "It said I was going to die in battle."

The Doctor stopped dancing for a moment to hug her. Dying is of little concern to her now… not that she knows that. "Then it lied." He said simply.

"_and you cant fight the tears that ain't coming_

_Or the moment of truth in your lies_

_When everything feels like the movies_

_Yeah you bleed just to know your alive"_

They danced in silence from then on, except for when the Doctor playfully dipped Rose until her head nearly skimmed the floor. She emitted a joyous laugh that was reflected in her brown eyes. She looked at him like she looked at no other, and he had realized for a long time now that her feelings were probably much the same as his own.

"_I just want you to know who I am."_

The last words rang through the tardis, and The Doctor twirled Rose one last time. She curtsied to him, her tongue peeking between her teeth as she smiled at him.

~\/\/ |-| ()? ~

Rose sat quietly on her bed, in her room, in the TARDIS. Oh how good it felt to be in the beautiful ship once more. The even better feeling was the one she had when she saw the Doctor once more. Her Doctor. After believing him to be dead, his smile had done more than made her feel safe again. It made her feel like she belonged somewhere, like there was someone out there who cared for her safety and happiness.

Her mind drifted to the dance they had shared earlier. It had felt wonderful being held by the Doctor, her doctor, like that. However, her mind was still going over what Ida had said to her in passing just before she had entered the Tardis….

_Rose wanted to sprint as all the way through those glorious blue doors as soon as she saw them materialize in front of her, but someone else had made their way through them before she had the opportunity. _

_Ida walked out, looking a bit dizzy but alive all the same, and made her way towards Rose with an obvious intention of saying goodbye. Rose personally didn't want to trifle with such things, but she didn't want to be rude, so she embraced the woman in a hug. _

"_Rose," Ida whispered, observing the young girl who looked more than a little distracted. "I know that you want to get back to him, but I wanted to tell you something first. Something about the Doctor."_

_This caught Rose's attention and she looked at Ida curiously. _

"_Down there, in the pit, when I said he mentioned your name…." Ida seemed unable to think of how to phrase her next words in a way that was not too revealing. She owed a lot to the Doctor, and didn't want to betray his trust. There must be a good reason that he kept his feelings bottled up so, but all the same, she thought he might need to realize the good he had waiting for him. _

"_Yeah?" Rose prodded a little, while her heart raced a little faster. This exchange had to be quick before the doctor came looking for her._

_Ida just looked at her thoughtfully before saying in a hushed tone, "Don't give up on him just yet. All he needs is some time." Then she hugged Rose once more and went to join her companions. _

_Rose did her best to recompose herself, and as soon as she entered the TARDIS, the conversation had all but disappeared from her mind. _

Now she lay in bed, thinking about those words. What did they mean?

Of course she knew what she wanted them to mean. Rose also wanted to know what he had really said so far below the surface of that impossible planet that could give Ida the impression that there was something just waiting to be unburied between the two of them.

"Rose?" his familiar voice called from her open doorway. His sudden appearance had startled her and she hadn't had the time to recover her expression quickly enough. She knew he caught the look upon her face that indicated her thoughts in a less than happy place.

He placed the tray of tea he had brought on her bedside table and sat on the edge of her bed. His closeness never failed to make her feel a bit woozy, and she looked away for a moment. Lately the feeling of him being close had started to intensify. Her breathing was still heavy, but it wasn't uncomfortable. The uncomfortable feeling was in her chest, like her heart had grown twice in size, twice as strong, and twice as desperate to rip out of her chest and offer itself to the Doctor.

"I brought you your nightly tea." The Doctor said, being the typical doctor and avoiding any conversation about emotion or feelings. He often criticized the human race so much, she wondered if it was simply because he feared feeling too much, of becoming too much like them.

Rose took a cup, forcing a smile on her face. These were moments she liked to cherish in her memories. They weren't remarkable like their danger-attracting adventures, nor were they remotely interesting half the time. She just liked sitting in the same room as him, in companionable silence. "Where to next then?" she asked him, looking out the window the TARDIS had supplied her room. It was identical in shape and color to the ones that appeared to be on the outside of the ship disguised as a phone booth.

"Oh, I don't know," The doctor said, rubbing the back of his head like he did when he was deep in thought. "I thought maybe we could take a break from all these monsters." He said it, but he couldn't keep a strait face. The smile grew bigger, and by the time he had finished the last word, both of them were laughing in a similar way to when they exited the TARDIS onto the impossible planet. It seemed wherever they went, monsters followed inevitably, even on the most peaceful of planets.

"Yeah, it would be nice huh?" she asked, taking a sip of her tea with a wistful glance out the window.

The doctor was quite for a couple minutes, something that was not unordinary in his darkest of moments. He went from being the most energetic, silly man she knew, to the most fearsome one. She wasn't sure what his silence meant until he asked her:

"Does it bother you?"

"What?"

"Being in danger all the time." His eyebrows creased in a distressed sort of way.

Rose thought about it. Of course, running for her life every few days was terrifying at the moment, but in an odd way, they were the best moments of her life. These two years _had_ been the best of her life, and she wouldn't trade it for anything.

She told him all that, then said, "I told you forever. I meant it."

The Doctor opened his mouth and looked at her in a way that she had only seen a few times, in his weakest of moments. When the silence between them was not uncomfortable, but trusting, and when it was just the two of them with no possibility of that changing right away.

But his expression puzzled her. It was the one he got whenever irony entered into the situation. She could read him so well now, she picked up on most things. Irony didn't seem to really fit into this situation, so she was sure she was missing something.

She thought back on what Ida had said. _"Don't give up on him just yet."_

But how Had Ida realized that months ago she had resigned herself to just a friendship with the Doctor, nothing more because she accepted that it never _could_ be anything more.

Rose took the opportunity to dissect the look he was giving her.

He looked slightly frightened to be honest, and as soon as she had looked at him, he looked away. She was reminded of his seemingly bleak mood when he asked her if the constant trouble they got in bothered her, and she slowly took one of his hands in hers.

"Doctor… are you alright?" she asked him, feeling very concerned. After nine hundred years, had he finally cracked?

After a few moments of tense silence he took a deep breath and looked at her. He stood up, pulling her up as well. "There' something I need to tell you."


	3. The Doctor and the Doctress

**Chapter 3: The Doctor and The Doctress**

Rose followed the Doctor silently down twists and turns until she didn't even know where she was. She had a feeling the Tardis was making it difficult for them, and even the Doctor was starting to sigh in frustration.

"All right, all right!" he cried angrily at nothing. Rose squeezed his hand which was still threaded in hers. Her heart was beating so fast she thought she must be dead, or else defying the laws of humanity. What did he want to tell her so badly, why was it so important.

A small portion of her hoped this was the moment she had dreamed of for over a year now, but she quickly stifled it. The doctor had made it absolutely clear that that kind of life was impossible for them multiple times, even if he didn't say it outright.

The Doctor found a door and opened it.

"It took you all this time… to find the med lab?" she asked, looking at all the unfamiliar alien medical equipment that she'd found the necessity to use multiple times.

"Yeah well…" the doctor ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I wasn't originally going to take you here, but the Tardis insisted."

"Hang on," Rose said with a small smile, pointing at nothing in particular. "You were just yelling at the Tardis?" she laughed, and he looked at her, smiling only a little bit as he started to boot up a machine she had never seen used before.

"The Tardis is slightly telepathic. I can tell when she's hurt, when she's annoyed with me—"

"The Tardis get's annoyed with you?" Rose interrupted, looking like this was the coolest thing she had heard in a while. He gave her the look that seemed to say 'don't you dare say anything.' She laughed once more, and stroked the wall in encouragement.

"Anyway," the doctor continued, tapping the side of the monitor on the machinery as it started to boot up. "She was being stubborn with me, and wants proof. Absolute proof." His last two words sounded scared, and she looked at him, all humor gone from her expression when she realized this was serious.

He walked over to her, holding something in her hand that she couldn't see. "Sorry Rose," he said, before he took one of her hands and stabbed it with something small and sharp.

"Oi!" she cried, tugging her hand back. "What was that for?"

"DNA, I need your DNA." He said, holding out a hand for her. Rose slowly gave him back her bleeding palm, still looking for all the world confused. This definitely wasn't something she had anticipated…what ever it is.

He put a few drops of her blood on a piece of paper, then inserted it into a box with a whole rainbow of buttons on the other side of the room.

"What exactly are we testing for?" Rose asked, concerned that she had picked up a disease or something from an alien planet. She remembered learning about the native Americans, and how Europeans brought over diseases they hadn't developed immunity for. Many of them died. Rose shivered. She definitely didn't have immunity of other worldly diseases.

The Doctor never answered her question. He just glanced over at her. "Take your coat off." Obviously she obliged, trusting the Doctor completely. She realized that she wasn't going to get any answers until he got his, so she stood there, in her light pink tank top staring at him in curiosity as he brought over what looked like an oversized sonic screw driver.

He pressed the button and a green light appeared. He traced it over the top half of her torso and gazed up at a screen on the wall. It was obviously some sort of X-ray thing, but what she saw didn't make any sense. No sense at all.

"Is that…me?" she asked, not believing it. It couldn't be. The doctor's hand started to shake as they watched the screen together. Two hearts, beating away a rhythm together that explained everything; they alternated beats. So when she excited or scared, her heart seemed to beat twice as fast, but it really wasn't one heart, it was _two. _

Finally the Doctor stopped. He wouldn't look at her, he just leaned back against a cleared portion of the wall and sank down it slowly, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his head.

Rose was still shocked into silence. Two hearts. The only person she knew who had two hearts was him, the Doctor, a Time Lord. "No…." she said quietly, putting a hand on her chest, surprised she hadn't realized it earlier. The Doctor was obviously suspicious about it. How had he noticed before she did? It was her own body for cryin' out loud!

The small metal box beeped, and the Doctor jumped up and ripped away a piece of paper barely before it was done printing. He looked at it, just stared at the paper and a whole armada of emotions managed to cross his face in a matter of seconds, so fast she could barely make them out.

"Let me see that," Rose cried, ripping the paper out of his hand. He barely even reacted. He kept staring forward like he did when something was disturbing him, or puzzing him. Rose looked at the paper and nearly started to cry.

_Chromosome pairs: 65  
Blood Type: L-_

_Age- 3 months, 11 days_

_Species: Time Lord_

First her hands started to shake. Then her whole body. The paper slipped between her fingers and drifted slowly to the floor, landing between the two of them. "Impossible," she breathed.

The Doctor looked up at her, and he nodded his silent agreement, though his eyes said differently.

"What do you know?" She demanded, taking a step towards him, feeling her hearts pound blood through her veins. It was an odd thing to think; hearts. "Doctor, tell me! How did this happen?" It took the Doctor a couple minutes to collect his thoughts, and Rose grew impatient. She grabbed the front of his coat and pulled it roughly. "Tell me."

He sighed. "Bad Wolf." It was the only thing he said, but it clicked into place fairly easily.

He had told her what she had done after she looked into the vortex, how she had destroyed the daleks, brought life, saved the universe. It was so much power he had needed to take it from her before she died, he gave up a regeneration to save hers. But at what cost?

"What aren't you telling me?" she asked quietly.

The Doctor stared at her, like he was scared to answer. "At first I thought it was insignificant. That music, it was enough of a gift, she didn't need to give me more…." His babbling made no sense to her, and he must have seen her frustration played out on her face, because he took a deep breath and explained further. "You, the Bad Wolf rather, had taken my hands and told me…. '_I look inside Rose Tyler's mind, and I see such potential. This is my gift to you, the doctor. A gift born of the power of the Bad Wolf.'" _The Doctor started to pace, a habit of his newer form. "Then I heard the music, music I hadn't heard since Gallifrey was destroyed. Celebratory music, generally saved for the day when a Time Lord is born. You see, with so many of us never dieing, we rarely bred. So when a Time Lord was born, the whole planet rejoices. Imagine, a whole planet celebrating your birth…" He trailed off with a humorless laugh. Rose raised an eyebrow at him, not seeing the humor in the situation at all. "Right, I'm getting off track.

"Well, I didn't realize that something was different with you until I woke up after my regeneration to find you were still unconscious as well. I felt for your pulse and… how could I mistake that?" he asked himself incredulously.

Rose stared at him, starting to feel angry at him. "So you're saying you've known for—"

"Three months, eleven days?" he filled in. "I suspected. I wasn't sure how to tell you, I've been trying for so long, but after tonight, after almost dying I realized the kind of trouble I was putting you in for not knowing. Thousands of species covet the blood of a Time Lord. It's not safe for you not to know."

Rose shook her head, picking up the paper once more. "Can this be trusted?" she asked him, her voice conveying no emotion. "Or will it tell me you're human?"

"One hundred percent trustworthy." He said, sounding like he was walking on nails, concentrating so hard not to take a wrong step.

Rose shook her head unbelievingly. "How come I didn't regenerate too then?"

"How should I know?" The Doctor said, running a hand through his hair. "Nothing like this has ever happened before. You're wrong Rose, you shouldn't exist." He said it, but not in a mean way. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself something.

Rose smiled at him momentarily. "Well Doctor… aren't you happy?" she asked him.

He shifted his weight awkwardly. "What do you mean?" she watched him, finally realizing the kind of gift Bad Wolf had really given them; a chance. They had a chance to try now, assuming the Doctor even wanted her. Her heart dropped at that thought. How long would he be able to tolerate traveling with her? Ten more years? Fifteen? Then would he dump her back on earth, to live for an eternity, always regenerating, never aging?

"What do you mean Rose?" he asked again, breaking through her thoughts.

"Well…" she began, twisting her body a little in a swaying kind of motion. "Your no the last of the Time Lords any more are you? Kinda takes away from the grandeur though doesn't it? 'The Doctor, _one _of the last Time Lords'"

He smiled at her. "you aren't mad?" he asked her.

"Well, I'm furious with you for keeping your mouth shut for three months. Hang on—" she said, raising an eyebrow at him. "What was all that rubbish back when we were with Sarah Jane then? 'That's the curse of the Time Lord.'" She imitated him, crossing his arms.

"It was so easy to forget, to keep on believing that your human," he said quietly, looking into her eyes, as they both reflected on what that particular conversation had been about. "But other then that…?"

"I promised you forever Doctor," Rose said quietly, thinking back about when she had brought it up earlier that night. The look of irony suddenly made sense. "Now I can give it to you… if you want." She concluded shyly, looking away from him.

The Doctor's smile got suddenly bigger, and he took one step closer and hugged her. "Dame Rose, Lady of Time!" he cried when he pulled away. Rose's smile got big enough to match his. She knew his excitement probably only had to do with the fact that he wasn't the last of his kind anymore, that he wasn't completely alone.

"Hang on!" Rose said holding up a hand with her mouth open slightly.

He froze. "What?" he asked, looking like he was scared of her again, which was slightly entertaining to her.

"If you're the Doctor, do I get a name too?"

He laughed and took a step around her for the door. "I think Rose is perfect."

"But not intimidating. There's no 'the' in front of my name," she pointed out.

He stopped and turned to face her. "You're Rose, there's no changing that." Then he continued out the door.

"Aw, come on!" Rose cried, following after him. "How about 'The Nurse'?"

"Oh, God no." The doctor cried, disgusted.

"The Physician?"

"What?"

"The surgeon?"

"Rose!"

"How about…. The Wolf?"

"No."

"The Dolphin?"

"Seriously?"

"The annihilator"

"Stop it!"

"Oh, I know! The Doctress!"

"The what?"

"The Doctor and the Doctress, I like it."

"Definitely not."

"The Wolf Doctress."

"Ungh"


	4. What Could Be

Chapter 4: What Could Be

The Doctor ultimately led them into the kitchen and he started to shift around the dishes in the cupboard until he apparently found what he was looking for. Rose knew that something was bothering him though, despite the smile he had worn during their playful banter about her name.

She wondered if he didn't want this, didn't want to feel committed to her for the rest of eternity. Maybe he _liked _being the last of the Time Lords. It made him seem so much stronger then the rest, for fighting on the front lines of the most deadliest battle and being the only one to live to tell the tale. She knew that was what people thought of him; a fighter, a liberator, an anarchist yet enforcer. But she didn't think that anymore.

Over a year of traveling with him had opened her eyes to see who he really was; Lonely, but with so many friends, Lovable but unable to love, powerful but emotional. He was a paradox just by being himself, and that's what she loved most about him.

But here she stood, knowing that she was probably one of the few he had let so many guards down to, yet she knew so little of him. Even now she was unable to decipher what he was feeling, and she never could if he didn't want her to.

The Doctor broke through her thinking by offering her a cup of steaming hot chocolate, complete with whipped cream on the top. "Are you okay Rose?" he asked her, sitting across from her at the small circular table they rarely ever used for actual meals.

She nodded her head slowly. "Just trying to decide if…." She looked away from him and took a sip of her hot chocolate. He didn't press her for answers, knowing that this was a lot of information to take in so suddenly. It would take years for her to get used to this, she just knew it.

"Does it bother you?" she finally settled on asking him, not daring to look at him incase his face told her what she didn't want to know.

The Doctor sighed and set his mug of hot chocolate down. "Not in the way you're thinking I'm sure." As was his nervous custom, his hand shot up to his hair to mess it up even more. "I'm thrilled at the thought of… at what this means—" he blew out a gust of air from his lungs. "Blimey I'm rubbish at this."

Rose looked at him finally, really looked at him. He was the poster boy of nervousness. His fingers were constantly tapping something, or wringing themselves around eachother, while his leg was bouncing up and down rapidly. Rose smiled at him.

"What?" the Doctor asked, looking at his shirt to check and see if he had spilled something on it. "What?"

"Nothing," she smirked, taking another sip. "You were saying?"

"I was _saying,_" he started, staring her down like he was trying to reach into her mind and snatch away the answers he was apparently seeking. "the only reason I'm… bothered, is because I'm concerned for _you. _Don't you want a human life with your mother, to age and get married and have children?" he said quietly.

Rose's smile got bigger. She knew she shouldn't hope, but his answer indicated that he had no problem spending long periods of time with Rose, or at least for the time being it didn't bother him. Perhaps in a hundred years or so….

Rose nearly laughed out loud. Look at her! She was already thinking like a Time Lord, like she was born to live this kind of life.

"My mother will die eventually, whether or not I'm still human. As for the marriage and children…." Rose trailed off, wondering if it were possible for Time Lords to have children. They obviously reproduced, but did they grow their offspring like they grew time machines? It was an alien species, in many ways different from the human race, despite their similarities. "I reckon I can still get married at least."

"no children?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as if to remind her that she was sacrificing a lot for this kind of life, why give up what little she could have?

Rose shrugged, blushing a little. "Is that even possible?"

He raised both his eyebrows this time. "Yes," he said, before he took a deep gulp of his drink. When he had drained the cup he set it down, cleared his throat and said, "But it is inadvisable to um, for lack of a better word, cross breed with a different species, since you will inevitable watch your child die." The last word fell off his tongue bitterly, and his eyes took on that haunted look that told Rose he was reflecting on the horrors of his past.

She reached over the table and placed one hand gently on his for a second, and he quickly recovered himself.

For a few more moments they sat in silence, Rose finishing her hot chocolate and the Doctor watching the floor. Both were absorbed in their own thoughts.

Rose's had gone down a dangerous path, one that told her if she were to have a child, it didn't necessarily have to be mortal, if she had one with the Doctor. But that would include several… intimate situations that made her mind reel and her body flutter in unspeakable places. For months now she had placed the possibility to the back of her mind as soon as she started to realize she had feelings for the Doctor. It was as he said, a Time Lords curse. But now they shared that curse.

Little did she know the Doctors thoughts weren't far behind. There was Rose, seated across from him and handling this situation so beautifully, he wondered if she had already known or suspected. Or maybe it didn't bother her like it bothered him. Of course, he knew many humans would sacrifice many things for immortality, and being a Time Lord was the closest you could get. But Rose wasn't like that, there had to be another reason she was so accepting to this.

He thought back to the words they had shared. _"Exactly how long are you going to stay with me?" "Forever."_

He wondered if she had really truly meant it, that when she had promised him forever, she wasn't lying. The thought of forever with Rose was extremely appealing, and their short conversation about marriage and kids had let errant thoughts he had forbidden the past year or so to make themselves known once more. A life with rose, just like they had been talking about on the impossible planet, (god was it really only hours ago?), when they had thought they were stranded with no Tardis. She had proposed they live together, and he would have taken her up on that offer, claiming that there was no sense in having two different morgages.

Then what would have happened between them? It was uncharted territory for the doctor. Domestics, he despised domestics. But experiencing them in small amounts here on the Tardis, he realized that it wouldn't be that bad with Rose.

"So how come I haven't got the names of all the planets and stars, and historical facts and such running through my head?" Rose asked suddenly, and the Doctor pushed all those thoughts away. He had forbidden them for a reason.

"Well, there are a lot of rites a Time Lord goes through, which unfortunately any possibility of those are gone with Gallifrey." He explained, taping his fingers on the table in a repeating rhythm.

Rose looked mildly disappointed. "Seems like I'll have to learn the hard way then. What kind of rites?"

"Well, looking into the Time Vortex for instance. We could just open the doors of the Tardis and do it, but it would be raw and intense, and most likely fry your brain if you were to concentrate on it for too long. The windows we had on Gallifrey were toned down a bit, designed to let the mind see only what was impertinent. That's how many of us decided our names." He explained to her, taking on his 'Superior Time Lord' voice. He smiled at her. "They are much more important than to be decided on a whim."

Rose giggled. "I still like the Doctress."

The Doctor liked it too, funny enough. Not that it really suited Rose personality wise, but that is seemed to link her to him in companionship. Names are important on most planets, and to share a name is to share a life together. Nevertheless, he shook his head at her.

"You're just Rose. I don't care if you tell people you're '_The _Rose', but you'll always be just rose. That was the name you were given at birth."

"And what was your name at birth Doctor?" She asked him shyly, watching his face to see if she was crossing any lines.

"Cant tell you," he said quietly. "I don't really know, and the only way I can tell someone my real name is if—" he stopped, blushing, which obviously only made Rose want to know even more.

"So," she said, changing the topic despite her curiosity, "where are we going next? I want to test out my Time Lord powers," she said, standing up and stretching.

The Doctor smiled at her. "We only just escaped a planet with our lives, remember? I think we should give it a few days."

Rose opened her mouth to protest, but the Doctor cut her off. "Maybe I'll teach you a thing or two about being a Time Lord." His smile was bigger than he had meant it to be, and he was full of pride and excitement at the sudden turn his life had taken. He knew better then to think it would last. Nothing lasted for the Doctor, because he was destined for loneliness, his nine hundred and one years had proven that. But maybe if he was careful with the lines he crossed with Rose, if he was careful not to enjoy her company _too _much (and of course he inadvertedly meant if he didn't become intimate with her, because by all logic he certinally could now, not that he'd ever wanted to, well rarely. Most of the time he didn't think of her like that. Usually.) maybe if he was careful, he could keep her around for a while.

The Doctor led Rose out of the kitchen by the hand, feeling hope rise into his chest, blossoming beautifully, when suddenly Rose stopped and gasped.

"Rose?" he asked, turning to face her. Her hand was on her forehead, eyes crumpled in momentairy pain. Then, as soon as it was there, it was gone. "What was it Rose?" he asked her quietly.

"I saw…." She trailed off, her voice shaking and her eyes teary from the pain. Her eyes moved to look into his for a second, but before he could figure out what the emotion was behing them, she looked away. "I'm not sure what I saw."

"It's okay, just normal Time Lord stuff. You learn to control it." He said simply.

"But what was it?" Rose asked him.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Time vortex…. Stuff." He finished lamely. "Basically anything that was, what is, what will be, could possibly be. Sometimes it happens when a major decision is made somewhere in the universe, somewhere in time. Probably minor back lash depending on where we're floating in the vortex right now" He was babbling, and he realized Rose wasn't really listening.

In fact, Rose's mind was reeling. She looked up at the Doctor, hardly able to believe what she had just seen in her mind. _What was, what is, what will be, could possibly be. _Well, it definitely wasn't 'what was', since she would have remembered that. It wasn't under the category 'what is', as nothing even close to that was happening. The next two categories left her hopeful, but her new life span put it into perspective.

You see, Rose had just had a vision of the Doctor and herself. Just a flash, but enough to give her an idea that she apparently had a lot to look forward to. Spoilers, the Doctor called things like these. But she couldn't help it. But her newly quick thinking mind pointed out to her that it could be tomorrow, or it could be in a thousand years.

Suddenly Rose wasn't so excited anymore.


	5. Gifts and Ghosts

Surprisingly, things were exactly the same as they had been before. Except for the odd question Rose came up with, they were still traveling the universe looking for at least one day of peace and only finding chaos, which is what they secretly longed for. There was something about having your life placed constantly in the hands of another that made you undeniably close.

The Doctor had been working hard on a project in his rare private time just for Rose. He wanted her to know that he was thrilled to have another of his kind, but if it had to have been anyone he was even happier it was her. God forbid it turned out that there was another Time Lord out there that turned out to be the most annoying git ever to have walked the stars.

He finished it a couple nights after their stay in 2012 England and their encounter with Chloe Webber. He twisted it around in his fingers for a while, inspecting it from every angle and making sure that it worked properly. He hoped he had her measurments right, and as he was gifted with incredible observation skills, he knew he had.

Speaking of skills, he and Rose both had started to notice changes in her, and he realized that while the physical aspect like DNA and number of organs had happened almost automatically, like a regeneration without changing her face, she still had to grow into her now spacious mind. Humans only used ten percent of their minds, and comparatively, Time Lords used ninety eight percent.

Their first real shock had been when she pulled a stunt the doctor would have been proud of. They were running from a particularly vicious pair of Flacarpolus, flamingo looking guard birds on the planet Tridoon 4. They were trapped on the top deck, the guard birds on the other side of a locked door, when she bent down and picked up a metal cylander, and immediately opened it, even though it was alien technology she had never seen. Inside there were four metal spheres, and she took one out and opened a ventilation shaft, pressed a round button and rolled it down the shaft. They distinctly heard a muffled explosion on the other side of the door.

He had looked down at her and asked, "How did you know what that was?"

She just shrugged and said, "just a hunch."

But the real shocker part had been when she took another one of those metal spheres and rolled it down a debris littered hall like a pin ball machine. It made it through obstacles a whole hundred meters, exploding a door at the other end of the hall that was their only way out, previously blocked.

The Doctor smiled fondly at the memory of how proud he had been at her. Her brain was developing rapidly, resulting in many headaches from her, which she rarely complained of.

For a while he was worried about her, sure that something would go wrong with the transformation from human to Time Lord, but the Bad Wolf seemed to know what she was doing, and she was making the Doctor happier than he could ever remember being in a while.

A knock on his door made him jump, and he hastily shoved her gift into his pocket.

"What are you doing?" she asked him, smiling like she knew he was hiding something.

The Doctor shrugged and stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. "Nothing, just trying to think of how to repair the sub-dimensional transfusion vortex jumper."

Rose raised an eyebrow at him. "Am I ever going to know what any of these things are, or are you going to keep piloting the Tardis by yourself for all of eternity?"

The Doctor smiled. "I've had helpers before. But none of them have known what I'm talking about since… well, since Gallifrey."

"You could teach me," she suggested, her tongue peeking between her teeth like it usually did when she was curious about something. He watched her for a moment.

"Right, well first I wanted to give you something." He told her with a smile, grasping her hand and pulling her out to the control room. "It's a good thing we got on this topic, nice segue."

"What are you talking about Doctor?" she asked him, still smiling and letting him lead her down the hall way and out to his console, where he leaned against it. She figured this was where he was most comfortable, and he probably felt awkward giving her something.

Which was correct of course. Rose could read the Doctor like a book, and he was slightly nervous that she wouldn't like it or want it. She was too nice to tell him so, but if this was the case he would know immediately, for while rose could read the Doctor like a book, like Reinette had said, a door once opened can be passed through both ways.

"Well, it wasn't a perfect segue, but while we're on the topic of the Tardis," he pulled out the ring he had fashioned for her, holding it out so she could see it. "It's a telepathic receptor. I've told you the Tardis is telepathic, gets in your head and translates languages for you. Well, it can work both ways. Wear this for a while and you wont need it any more, but for now…." He trailed off, and Rose held out her hand silently, her expression unreadable.

He slid it onto her ring finger, resisting the urge to hold onto her hand, or pull her closer or… well, he resisted a lot of his urges nowadays.

She closed her eyes and smiled. "I can feel her." She whispered, running a hand on the console.

The Doctor nodded. "Every Time Lord has a connection with their vessel, and I didn't want you to miss out. That stone on that ring is from the Tardis herself. A Bio-connector that links telepathic fields. Yours has yet to develop, but once it does there are so many things I could teach you to do with it."

His mind strayed momentarily to the deepest telepathic bond between Time Lords, and wondered if they would have that some day. It took some powerful emotion to stimulate full telepathic powers, and he wondered if he could be that for her….

He shook his thoughts, almost positive that that kind of bond wasn't something Rose was looking for between them. When he refocused, he was shocked to see her eyes full with tears before she threw her arms happily around him.

"Thank you Doctor. I'll wear it forever."

He felt warm at her proclamation, hugging her back feeling himself drown in her scent.

The Doctor was pacing Jackie Tyler's living room while Rose watched him, just as confused as he was, absent mindedly playing with her Tardis ring, as she had fondly come to think of it.

It was funny, but neither had realized at the moment that the finger the Doctor had put the ring on had been her ring finger on her _left _hand. She knew this probably didn't hold the same meaning to the Doctor as it did to her, but he knew much about human traditions. It had taken her a while to convince her to switch it to her right hand, but knew that she needed to or else receive awkward questions from her mother and Mickey.

"What are they?" the Doctor asked in frustration, close to wearing a hole in their carpet with all the pacing he was doing. "They definitely are not ghosts. Not even Time Lords have proof of their existence."

"So what happens when you die?" Rose asked him, suddenly curious. Of all the things she had seen in the past two years, ghosts would seem like nothing to her now. She would be unsurprised if they existed, but now he was saying they didn't?

The Doctor shrugged. "Perhaps a different reality? I personally believe that nothing happens, you just die. You would call me an atheist, but on my planet I was a realist."

Rose seemed extremely disappointed, until she realized that if she played her cards right, she wouldn't need to worry about that for a very, very long time.

He went back to his distressed pacing before exclaimed, "Oh, that's it!" making Rose jump. Her reactions were still distinctly human as of now. The Doctor doesn't really jump at anything, she realized, before asking him what was 'it'.

"A different reality! Rose, you remember the parallel universe we visited!" she nodded, even though it wasn't really a question, it was more like a statement. How could she forget meeting her father and losing her mother? Leaving Mickey behind to live with his gran? It had been hard for her, but she of course remembered.

"What if these ghosts were leaks from a parallel universe?" he asked her, gesticulating with his hands when he so often did. "But that would mean there's a breech in the fabric of the universe, but where is it?" he suddenly ran out of the room, and Rose got to her feet and quickly caught up, getting the feeling that this was going to be another one of their more dangerous exploits.


	6. Just Like That

Chapter 5: Just Like That

"Think I should tell my mum?" Rose asked quietly just as Jackie Tyler exited the room for the night. Rose and the Doctor sat on the couch silently drinking tea. She had jus interrupted the Doctors thoughts about the day's events and the Ghosts, and trying to work out how to figure out their source and what exactly they were, which was most certainly not really ghosts.

He looked up at her and shook his head. "No, most definitely not! Can you imagine? Jackie Tyler finding out her daughter was turned into an alien? No, not if you value my life." He told her firmly. Rose laughed a little.

"The Doctor, conqueror of universes is afraid of my mum, a silly little ape!" she teased him, placing a hand on her chest and plowing out a small puff of air.

"You okay?" he asked, watching her take steadying breaths. He shifted closer to her and pulled out his stethoscope for the increasingly regular checkup on her developing respiratory and circulatory systems.

Rose nodded at him. "Laughing just feels odd, is all. Different, I mean," she added, when he peaked an eyebrow at her in concern. Honestly, it was silly how concerned he was for her. Everything was going well, and her biology should be fully converted in little more that a couple days now.

"Everything sounds fine," he said, moving the stethoscope from the left side of her back to the right side, Rose couldn't help but shiver a little, and she really hoped that he didn't notice, but of course he did. She knew better then before what Time Lord senses could detect.

He said nothing though, just continued his inspection in silence. The even more awkward part was that everytime he touched her, even just a brush up of shoulders or something, set her heart (and now hearts) pounding, and this incident was no different.

Rose moved suddenly, turning towards him so that he had to stop listening to her chest. "I think I'm okay, yeah? I feel fine, just getting used to it is all."

She wouldn't look him in the eyes, and she started to play with the hair on the back of her head which was custom to her when she started to feel nervous. How did he feel about the fact that she reacted to him so physically whenever he was near her like that? Did he choose to ignore it so he didn't hurt her feelings, or get her hopes up? Rose had foolishly hoped that he transformation had opened new doors for them, but she realized now with a pang of bitter disappointment that it would probably never happen, and her eyes started to water.

Rose stood up quickly and crossed the room to the window so he couldn't see her struggle to hold back her sudden unexpected tears. Seriously, what was with her lately? All her emotions seemed to hit her harder then before, and maybe it was because she used more of her brain, and had one more heart for all that emotion. He had assured her it was normal for Time Lords, sort of like an adolescence for them until they learned to control and dictate their emotions, apparently until it appeared they had none at times.

"Rose?" he asked, standing as well, and she haistily wiped her hands under her eyes incase her makeup had smeared with her tears.

Taking a deep breath she replied, "yeah?" the quiver in her voice easy to detect.

"Are you alright?" He asked, his tone clearly showing his concern for her.

"Yeah just, you know…" she trailed off, giving a shakey laugh that didn't sound natural. "Time Lord adolescence, that's me, going through bloody puberty all over again. God, I thought I'd left that all behind years ago."

The Doctor didn't come any closer to her, debating on what to do. He thought he knew what had brought this sudden awkwardness between them. If he was honest to himself, Rose didn't need to be checked on anymore, everything was working fine just like she had claimed. He had only wanted the excuse to touch her like that, something he wasn't proud of. He never manipulated someone, but that is what this felt like to him. When he heart the acceleration of her hearts and her breathing hitch he imagined it was because of him, that he was having the same affect on her that she did on him.

"How long will it be like this?" she asked him quietly.

"Not long, as soon as you're done with the transformation. Rose?" he asked, and he took one more step towards her. He wanted to know, _needed _to know. "What's really bothering you?"

It took her a long time to decide whether or not to tell him. It even took a lot of effort to convince herself to turn and face him, hoping that everything she was thinking could be seen in her expression, and the tears that were pooling in her eyes. They stood staring at each other for a couple minutes, each calculating the other.

The Doctor saw pain and loneliness, love and companionship in her eyes. Things that are and what could be between them.

"There's so much I want to tell you," she sniffed, breaking their eye contact momentarily. "But I hardly know where to start."

He watched her sadly, knowing that he had the same problem as her. "Where do you see yourself in a hundred years Rose?" he asked her. "Now that you have all of time and the universe in your hands, where do you see yourself?"

She looked at him like it was obvious. "With you Doctor," she spoke honestly, looking down at her hands, wringing them together. "I promised you forever, and I mean it. That is… if you don't get bored of me or something."

He held back a laugh at the absurdity of such a statement. He immediately stepped forward to hug her, and he unthinkingly kissed the top of her head. "Rose…." He pulled back and placed both hands on the side of her head. "How could I get bored of you? You're brilliant and brave and you never fail to surprise me." He searched her eyes and was really careful about not letting his fingertips make contact with this side of her head. He was positive Rose didn't invite that kind of psychological invasion, so he was left on his own to figure out what it is she really wanted. He looked down to see one of her hands come to rest on his chest, right between both of his hearts. He dropped one of his hands and rested it over her own, looking at her and watching her expression.

When Rose looked at him finally, he saw a change in her expression. "I guess if I got another hundred years with you, I might as well tell ya." Her fingers fidgeted on his chest. "I very well might explode right now as it is."

"Well we can't have that," he told her, moving the hand from the side of her head down to her waist. There was a long silence once more, and he squeezed her hand. "Come on Rose. Tell me."

Very slowly, she slipped her hand out from under his, and brought it up to cup his cheek. "Doctor…" she said so quietly he wasn't even sure he had heard it. She took a small step towards him, closer if even possible, and he suddenly understood what she was going to do. He saw it, in his head, a vision a spit second in the future, one of the rare visions he was gifted with that he invited. He met her halfway, using the hand on her waist to gently bring her closer against his body. He could feel her against his chest, closer then they had ever been before, and just before he met her lips he whispered her name and felt her shiver against him.

The kiss was soft at first, tender and trusting. It spoke thousands of words for the both of them, all the things they had been too afraid to say to each other before, and all of the things they hoped could be.

Rose pulled away first, breathing heavily and resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, letting a feeling of utter contentment wash over him. He was still not willing to accept that he had a happy future full of love ahead of him, but for now he was happy to live in the moment.

"I love you," she whispered into the crook of his neck, and he could feel her breath caress his skin there. He opened his mouth, struggling to return the words he had been holding back for so long, that he knew were true, but nothing came out.

Rose pulled away from him after a moment and she smiled sadly at him. "I know," she told him quietly, but what did she know? That he loved her? That she understood he couldn't say the words, not now, not until….

So he settled himself with kissing her again, learning quickly that there was no feeling like Rose's lips on his, and when she slowly deepened the kiss, he wondered why he'd never done this before now.

Somehow his fingers had worked their way under the bottom of Rose's shirt. He lightly ran his fingers over her stomach and she shuddered, attempting to pull him even closer to him. His mind was in absolute turmoil, the most chaotic it had been since the fall of Gallifrey, but this was different too. The feeling swooped down to clench his stomach and it squeezed both his hearts at the same time. It was everywhere, and by some deep ancient instinct his fingers made contact with her temples.

That's when all hell broke loose.

They both froze as the connection washed over them. He felt everything she felt, as did she. It doubled their long buried passion for each other in a way that made tears pool in her beautiful brown eyes. But the connection ventured farther still, into her past, their latest adventures together, all the moments they had touched or smiled or laughed with each other stood out most prominent to her, and he felt what she had felt; when she learned what she had become, when she had waken up to a strange man claiming to be her doctor, fighting to get back to him on satellite five. Her memories of his older self was an odd feeling, to see her think about someone in such a way, someone that looked nothing like him, but _was _him. He saw all those moments, the fun she had had when they danced after saving Captain Jack, her _amusement _and _attraction_ to Captain Jack that stirred the feeling of jealousy in the pit of his stomach. When she first encountered the Dalek, losing Mickey to the plastic monster in the heaert of London, her wonder at the strange man who had taken her hand and told her to run.

When he started going farther back than that he broke the connection, gasping at a lack of air he hadn't noticed before. She too was gasping, but looking at him in a whole new way. He suddenly became scared. What had she seen?

"Doctor…." She whispered, tracing his face with her fingertips, then she placed them on the side of _his _head, and it wasn't strong, but he felt her there. She was trying to project her feelings to him, to tell him that she understood, that everything would be alright. That she _loved _him.

He hugged her too him. "Rose… my Rose."

"There's so much pain in your life Doctor," she told him quietly, sadness evident in his voice.

"Not so much these last couple years." He told her truthfully, and she had to have seen that, how much she had changed him for the better.

Somehow in the night they had made their way onto the couch, just holding each other until Rose fell into a deep sleep on the Doctors chest. He played with her hair, thinking about the future; his future, not just earth's future since he didn't exactly have a linear timeline.

Somehow he felt certain that as wonderful as a relationship with Rose sounded to him, something was going to go wrong. They would be separated or alienated. A million scenarios went through his head, and he started to dwell on the 'ghosts.' They were wrong, they just felt _wrong _to him. Dangerous and wrong.


	7. The Doctor's Laughing Fit

Jackie Tyler knew something had changed the moment her daughter had been returned to her. It honestly was quite obvious to see. Her daughter was absolutely radiant about something, there was a sparkle in her eye that she only ever had when she was with the doctor, a life Jackie had accepted for Rose. But now there was more there. She wasn't sure what. Hope perhaps…or excitement. Whatever it was, it made Jackie curious.

Later, after watching Rose and the Doctor carefully, she went to bed. She wasn't scared they were going to disappear, not tonight. The Doctor was caught up in another one of his doomsday scenarios, and this time it was in Jackie's time.

She felt like she was mourning the loss of her father all over again though, when the Doctor had told her it wasn't right, that this could even be dangerous. Who was she to stand in the way of him and saving planet earth right? After all, he was from a different planet, wasn't even _human_, and he come parading around here, showing off his space ship and acting like he owned the place. Though with all the bitterness she felt towards him, she owed him her daughter's happiness, even if she didn't entirely like the man. Oh, and he had actually saved the world once.

As she dressed for bed she thought back over what she had observed of Rose. There was something so different about her that Jackie felt like she had lost her daughter. It was a troubling thought, especially when the conclusive evidence of her life was right in front of her face.

Her words to Rose when she was trying to save the Doctor all those months back had been a spur of the moment, desperate attempt to convince her to say. But what if there was some truth in those words, what if Rose was becoming something less human than alien?

Perhaps Jackie Tyler was not the most intelligent woman, but she smart enough, and maternal enough, to be concerned about her daughter, even when it seemed like there was no grounds for her to even be suspicious. Jackie fell into a fitful sleep with dreams of green alien's and rose and a constant rhythm beating in the back ground. Like two hearts slightly out of sync with each other.

**\/\/ |-| ( )**

Rose probably had the best sleep she had ever experienced in a while. When she finally woke up it took her a few seconds to realize why she felt so overwhelmingly safe, warm, and comfortable. She made to stretch, but froze when she realized there was a pair of powerful arms holding her back, and she instantly relaxed once more when she realized who and what it was.

He was breathing deeply, sleeping deeply. It was one of the very rare occasions she had ever seen him sleep, though now she was, in the literal sense of the word, _sleeping _with him. It was still early, and for a while she watched the sun crawl across the floor by means of the window pattern on the floor. Just before it reached her, she fell into a content slumber once more, a beautiful song lulling her into the darkest reaches of unconsciousness.

At some point, the sun hit the Doctor in the face, and his eyes flew wide open. Then he groaned and squinted when he realized how bright it really was. It was almost too bright, golden almost, not entirely resembling sunlight at all. The Doctor looked down to wake Rose, but froze at she he was seeing.

She was glowing again, in a way he hadn't seen in months. She was Bad Wolf again, and he didn't know what it meant, but he felt suddenly petrified with fear. The Doctor pulled Rose more properly onto his lap so he could stand up while carrying her. He needed to get her to the Tardis before something—

"What the bloody hell is going on!" came a half hysterical voice from the doorway, and the Doctor mentally groaned. Truthfully, he had forgotton all about Jackie, and he didn't have time to waste with her now.

"Just leave it Jackie, I'll handle it."

"Leave it?" she cried incredulously. "There is no bloody way I'm letting you cart her off looking like that. What is it then, is she dying? Oh God, you killed her! What have you done to her!" Her voice was growing in volume with every word, and the Doctor fought hard not to roll his eyes at her. This was hardly the time, Rose with his top priority.

"All right then, you can come into the Tardis with us. It's the only place safe for her right now." The Doctor had no idea if this was true or not to be quite honest. It just seemed like the right choice. Even though what Jackie had said was absolutely absurd, he would never harm Rose, ever. But there was some truth there. He had failed to absorb all of the time vortex from her apparently, making it his fault she was dying again.

He quickly opened the Tardis, ignoring Jackie's mixture of sobs and threats against his life. He laid Rose on the bench where she had been just after the last time this had happened to her, and he started to pace, unsure of what to do.

"Are you satisfied, Doctor?" Rose said, only it wasn't Rose.

The Doctor whirled around, holding up a hand to Jackie who had started to approach her daughter with a cry of relief. "Satisfied with what?" he asked, knowing he was addressing the Bad Wolf. Her eyes were shining gold with the vortex, and she slowly sat up.

"No longer the last of the Time Lords, no longer alone; but there is great sadness ahead, and only by facing it with the bravery you have practiced for centuries can you come out strong and hopeful as you are now, for the both of you."

The Bad Wolf's words made no sense to him, but would think about them later. He was only concerned about Rose. What great sadness was ahead for him? Was Rose dying? He suddenly felt a rush of anger to this ancient being possessing the body of the one person he cared about above himself. _Some 'gift.'_ He thought bitterly.

"Rose Tyler's transformation is complete." Rose's body blinked, and suddenly the vortex was gone from her eyes, the unearthly glow lingering only seconds after that. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped. He was there to catch her though, slowly lowing her back down, smoothing her hair as her eyes fluttered open again, this time she was responsive.

"Doctor?" she asked him, placing a hand over one of his where it lay on her cheek. "What happened?"

"Well that's a bloody brilliant question." Jackie mumbled from the corner. The Doctor laughed once at her, then all of a sudden he couldn't hold it back. He laughed until tears welled in his eyes, not caring that Jackie was insulting him once more, or that Rose was looking at him like he was a madman.

The words had finally sank in, the words the Bad Wolf had gifted him with. He placed two hands on either side of her head, and kissed her forehead, still laughing. "What was the Civil War of the Draxacarpolis?"

"A war fought on the planet Draxacar over the issue of an enforced polytheistic worship of the God Hutu and his disciples, or the freedom to worship what ever being someone saw fit. The civil dispute turned bloody when a hutuist accidently fired a shot at an independent, thus creating hostility between the two sides for nearly five centuries." Rose rattled off like rapid fire, then her eyes got really wide. The Doctor practically twirled around in a pirouette. "How do I know that?" she asked him.

"Just one little bit of the vortex was left in you Rose, just a tiny amount, not fatal but enough to make a final connection with Bad Wolf. She completed you, she wove the vortex into your mind like every Time Lord since birth, giving you the knowledge of the universe. All of time and space, and you see all of it, just as I do!" He exclaimed, and she smiled at him in shared excitement.

"Will someone tell me what the hell is going on!"


End file.
